Our Flag! Happy 4th!

Before we had our current flag, Old Glory, the early republic made several attempts to come up with a flag that could be symbolic of our struggle for freedom.

The framers of the American Constitution were influenced by the Constitution of the United States of the Netherlands and similarities can be found in the Act of Abjuration, the declaration of independence of the United Provinces. John Adams wrote “The origins of the two republics are so much alike that the history of one seems but a transcript from that of the other.” It is also not a coincidence that the Dutch Republic flag at the time was red, white, and blue!

Flag of The Netherlands.

Many communities designed their own flags of rebellion and Schenectady was no exception.

In 1771, in today’s Stockade District, then the center of the city (then village) of Schenectady, a Liberty Pole was erected as a protest of British interference in our community affairs.

On top of this liberty pole hung a home made flag, with the word “Liberty” sewed on both sides for all to see.

It is written that the liberty flag was carried by the First New York Line regiment (largely from Schenectady) in 1776 and 1777 during the American Revolution.

Today you can see this flag at the Schenectady County Historical Society, only one of a few pre revolutionary flags known to exist.

Our official flag has gone through quite an evolution. George Washington had his own flag in 1775, perhaps the template for ours, though all blue with 13 white stars. Commodore Esek Hopkins, commander of the new continental fleet, carried a flag in February, 1776, when his ships put to sea for the first time. It was the famous coiled rattlesnake rising up in the center, with the words “Don’t Tread on Me.” It was designed by American General Christopher Gadsden.

George Washington's Flag.

The first true US flag was the Grand Union of 1775: also known as the Continental Flag.

It combined the British king’s colors and the thirteen stripes signifying colonial unity. George Washington liked this design so well that he chose it to be flown to celebrate the formation of the continental army on New Year’s Day, 1776. On that day the Grand Union Flag was proudly raised on Prospect Hill in Somerville, near his headquarters at Cambridge, Massachusetts.

The Gadsden Flag.

There have been 27 official flags of the US and nine variants of stars and stripes before the official flag was chosen.

The 13-star flag became the official United States flag on June 14th, 1777 and is the result of the congressional action that took place on that date.

After the addition of Vermont and Kentucky to the union in the early 1790s, the official flag of the United States became the 15 star, 15 stripe flag and was used until 1818.

This was the flag whose presence on the flagpole of Fort McHenry in Baltimore, Maryland inspired Francis Scott Key to write the poem “The Star Spangled Banner.” The poem as we all know was later put to music and in 1931 became our National Anthem.

The Grand Union Flag. First national flag of the United States.

There is an old saying that mimicry is the sincerest form of flattery.

There are currently 252 countries in the world with flags. Of those, 78 countries use some form of red, white and blue in their flags from American Samoa to the Wallis Islands

But what does a flag really stand for?

The 19th century reformer Henry Ward Beecher probably said it best:

“A thoughtful mind, when it sees a nation’s flag, sees not the flag only, but the nation itself; And whatever may be its symbols, its insignia, he reads chiefly in the flag the government, the principles, the truths, the history which belongs to the nation which belongs to the nation that sets it forth. “